by Jeff Gluck, USA TODAY Sports

by Jeff Gluck, USA TODAY Sports

CHARLOTTE â?? I believe it was the great poet Miley Cyrus who once sang she "came in like a wrecking ball."

"I just closed my eyes and swung," she sang. "Left me crashing in a blazing fall."

Many NASCAR fans already felt that way about Brian France's tenure as chairman - and that was before Thursday, when France announced a dramatic and seemingly desperate overhaul of the sport's playoff format.

The only thing more absurd than opening this column with Miley Cyrus lyrics is NASCAR's new one-race championship, which France revealed during the annual media tour in Charlotte.

After a grueling nine-month season and 35 points races, NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series title now will come down to a single race. A 16-driver field will be whittled down through a series of three eliminations (each after three Chase races) until there are four drivers remaining. Then the points will be reset for one race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

And you thought fans were mad when France created the previous playoff system in 2004, which reset the points for the final 10 races.

France's burning desire for "Game 7 moments" led him down a path unlike any other in the history of stock car racing. NASCAR now joins other sports with a true championship event, which might appeal more to mainstream sports fans.

The problem is NASCAR is not like other sports. There's a good reason auto racing's champion had always been determined with a season-long format: Because when there are 43 competitors on the same playing field, it's the fairest and truest way to determine which one is the best.

France's other ideas are excellent â?? but they will be overshadowed by how the champion is decided.

First, the playoff field will now be decided by regular-season race winners. If a driver wants to be part of the championship, he has to win.

That's a fantastic concept. Kudos to France for making winning more important than points racing.

Second, the Chase features a series of eliminations â?? another wise move. After all, isn't our reality TV culture used to that concept? And if NASCAR had reset the points with three races to go, I'd be on board. But having just one race to decide the title is too extreme and too far from what the sport has been about since 1948.

This format is not fair, nor does it pretend to be. It's about one thing: Trying to grow the fan base (also known as making more money). That's not bad if it works, but will this format be successful?

Thursday's change is an admission the old Chase format was not working. If it had helped NASCAR compete against the NFL and created more fan interest, then there wouldn't have been multiple tweaks over the years.

France pictured championship thrillers like the ones in 2004 -- when Kurt Busch beat Jimmie Johnson by just eight points -- and 2011 -- when Tony Stewart won his third title in a tiebreaker with Carl Edwards -- happening nearly every season; instead, they turned out to be the exception rather than the rule.

The Nationwide and Truck Series don't have a playoff and are still capable of having an exciting championship. Last year, Austin Dillon beat Sam Hornish for the Nationwide title by three points after 33 races; there was no points reset to make that happen.

This format is essentially the Nuclear Option. It doesn't get more extreme than a one-race playoff â?? and if it doesn't work, there's nowhere else to go in terms of a format.

Another misstep Thursday was creating a rule that tries to emphasize winning within the Chase. A victory in any segment will grant automatic advancement to the next round, which means the championship is much easier to win than before.

In the previous format, a driver had to string together 10 near-perfect weeks to win the title. Under the new format, a driver could win, use the next couple weeks as a test, rinse and repeat. It allows for multiple mulligans and inconsistency. The champion could easily have several sub-30th finishes and be crowned champion.

You'll have to forgive longtime fans â?? the ones who finally got used to the Chase format after growing up with a season-long points system â?? if they're acting a little mental after hearing the new rules. This kind of severe change is a shock to the system.

Though the announcement created angry voices on Twitter, NASCAR believes the negative crows on social media are a vocal minority and not reflective of how most fans feel about the concept. Internal NASCAR research from 2010 shows fans are in favor of both eliminations and a one-race playoff.

France apparently decided to hang the future of the sport on that hook and take a wrecking ball to NASCAR tradition.